By Kyra-lin Hom

Easter is a surprisingly controversial holiday. No one's entirely positive where it – let alone it its rituals – come from. It's supposedly a Christian celebration of resurrection and rebirth, but some purist Christians refuse to celebrate it, citing its pagan origins. Those pagan origins could be Anglo-Saxon or they could be Sumerian. And then there's the whole evolving from the Jewish Passover thing, being tied to the vernal equinox instead of the Gregorian calendar we're all familiar with, and the 325 CE Council of Nicaea's final stamp of approval. It's no wonder hard core Easter critics have wound themselves a little tight.

As far as I'm concerned, these are all fascinating tidbits of history but not something to grind my teeth over. And yet to some people, they are. Perhaps this is because, while, for example, some Christmas traditions call back to the gift-giving pagan holiday Saturnalia, Easter's roots are a bit sexier.

The academic community holds that there are two possible pagan origins for our Easter traditions. The first involves the 4,000 year-old Sumerian mother-goddess Inanna (spelled “Ishtar” in Babylonian and “Astarte” in ancient Canaan), who became the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus. She was the goddess of love, fertility and warfare – you have to love that combo. Grief stricken at the death of her husband, Inanna descends to the underworld where she is 'judged, killed and hung on display.' After three days, she and her husband are both resurrected as sunlight.

Some sources further trace Inanna back to the biblical Queen Semiramis of Babylon (think Tower of Babel), wife of King Nimrod and alleged founder of a satanic cult that worshipped fallen angels.

The second involves the Teutonic goddess of spring, Eastra (also spelled Eostre, Ostera, Ostara, Austra, Eastre and probably a few other ways I have yet to read). She was honored on the vernal (spring) equinox as a divinity of light, fertility and renewal. She is supposedly depicted with another symbol of fertility the hare, who she may or may not have found as a wounded bird and rescued by turning into a hare... that could still lay eggs. I say 'supposedly' because still others claim that she's a modern invention. Who knows? Certainly not me.

Anyway, back to the sexy bits I mentioned earlier. Many pre-Christian religions celebrated sexuality. Spirituality was both masculine and feminine rather than single-gendered or genderless. And fertility, when in the context of a divine king and queen is... well, it's a bit sexy. Fun fact, in Greek the sex ritual of “holy marriage” is called hieros gamos.

I can understand why knowing that the Easter bunny might have roots in an egg-laying, hare-consort to a Germanic fertility goddess might make some people uncomfortable. I mean, some of those full body costumes are already creepy without that added cultural baggage – just saying. Yet, fixating on these details robs holidays of their joy. Just because a few elements have been appropriated doesn't mean they are horribly and forever tainted. Alongside humanity and culture, they too have evolved.

Easter – for whatever reason you choose to celebrate or not – is about renewal. It's about celebrating with your family and community. And in the end, I think we can all agree that bunnies just don't lay eggs. Happy Easter!